I think this desperate need within society is not easy at all to bring into being – to put it mildly. However, as it’s been in the news again just lately, I would like to have a go at how I believe it can be done. We have particularly noted the wages problem in the BBC. And, make no mistake, we are told it’s much worse throughout the rest of the country. If one happens to have been born female, then those persons will receive around 17% less than their male counterpart, even though they may be doing exactly the same job in the same office.

Why is it not so easy to change this and bring in a satisfactory sense of equality? Because we have to change a deep set culture, or even lots of different sub-cultures, and much of the thinking that has formed that culture goes back a long way, ingraining itself into people’s thinking over many generations?

What is that ingrained thinking? At a basic level it really is a fact that Males are in charge. Because they are more intelligent? Stronger? Could it be that they are better? Females are, of course, lesser because they are not so clever or as strong, and therefore men need to be in charge. (That is a comment of sarcasm – please don’t write in to complain.)

What we tend to do is address symptoms of this disease. This means that we are wanting to increase women’s wages and make it, “equal jobs for equal pay” right across the board. The trouble is that such an action, once taken, still will not have addressed the thinking, just the symptoms that came into being because of that thinking.

Legislation would change things, though that would be somewhat of a blunt instrument. We know that laws can change wrong to right (and sometimes even change right to wrong), so we must not underestimate the power of a passed law by government.

However, I do think we need to address the issue of equality at its base. The foundational base is how people think. The way that people think has been formed by their family, the government, the educational system, the community that they mix with, the business pressures that they have been exposed to, the history that brought the issue into being, and even the language.

So it’s about changing people’s thinking. Changing the thinking that says men are superior, woman are inferior. That means influencing, educating, legislating and seeking to change the cultural mind-set that makes the acceptance of the statement above acceptable.

I listened recently to young lads, of non UK origin being interviewed on TV about what they thought about the so called “honour killings”. Their answers were horrific. They said things like, “If my sister had dishonoured my family, then, yes, I think she should be killed”. The whole idea that women are lesser, builds the strong presupposition that their freedoms of expression, their friends, their choice of dress, and all of their relationships must of necessity be controlled by men.

Sumptuary legislation, where ever it comes from, is always about power and domination. I hear comments like, “… but that woman chose to dress like this!” My question is one step further back. “Who pressurises them to choose, or to exercise their supposed freedom in that way?” The probable answer is their religion, the law, their culture, and all those facets of life that are their personally accepted conventions. Then we need to ask, “Why is it so?” The answer will be, “Because men dictate it”. (http://adrianhawkes.co.uk/sumptuary-legislation-2/)

We can achieve equality, but we need to deal with the symptoms, i.e. equal pay and opportunities and the like, but we also need to address the underlying cultural perception. We will need to do that by education, legislation and a strong argument against our historical position. In other words; a full scale attack on the current cultural position and underlying thinking.

It seems to me that after deciding on becoming a follower of Jesus, one then enters a relationship with God Himself. This effectively changes the way that we are. This, I understand, is done by changing our minds by changing the way we think, which will in turn change our actions.

So; we should become the kind of people who love our enemies, do good to those who would seek to harm us, treat others as more important than ourselves, recognise that all humans are made in the image of God and therefore need to be respected and highly regarded. I would then expect us (that is-all Jesus followers) to be generous, to see neither male nor female, bond nor free, this nationality or that – in fact caring for one another however possible

So; I am not sure how to express my disappointment, and lack of understanding on several fronts. Recently, reading an American article, (and I don’t think what I am about to say only reflects only on the USA- it just happened to be an American writer whose article I was reading) the writer noted that in the restaurant industry in the USA it was difficult to get staff to do the Sunday shift. They surveyed widely to try and understand why this was so. Waiting staff are apparently not that well paid in America, and therefore tips become a very important part of staff income.

It appeared, after the results of the survey had been assessed, that staff did not like the Sunday shift as they said, that, “Sunday is the day that all the church people come in to eat – and they are the meanest and least generous of our customers”. Why is it like that?

Friends of mine, both in the journalistic as well as the political world, tell me that the most vitriolic letters and communications, the ones that are “the most condemning” and, in their words, “the most unkind” of all the correspondence they receive (and this is both in the USA and in the UK) comes from people who express in their letters, that they are Christians. Again why is this so?

I know it has always been a “secret evil” in society, but again; why is it that we keep seeing the misuse of children and the abuse of people of the opposite sex from selfish desires, so often by Christians who express themselves as leaders in the church or in church organisations. Why?

I wonder!

Have these people really met God? Do they really understand what it is to have been changed by their relationship with God? Or are they just “label” people? Are they hiding under the epithet “Christian” as a word that may seem to be a useful label to stick on their activities to cloak their dark activities?

Recently, I have stopped responding when people ask me, “Are you a Christian?”I wonder what that means. Usually my response is, “I am a follower of Jesus, and I want that to be more than just a label. I want it to be demonstrated in living lifestyle and action.”

Jesus said to his early followers; “This is how people will know that you are my disciples, in that you have love one for another”.

I reckon that is not just love for other disciples. I think it should be possible to demonstrate that in the wider world with all races, colours and creeds. To people who are created in the image of “the God who is there.”

Recently my good friend Jeff Lucas wrote some stuff about people saying, “With God all things are possible.” “So with God you can do anything?” He went on to say that he/you everybody who reads that scripture, couldn’t do somethings. “Yes – we can’t do anything, (like fly without tickets or speak Chinese unless we learn it) but we can do all things through Christ who strengthens – in other words, what he has called us to.

Peter got out of the boat. The others didn’t.” He also noted he couldn’t fly without an aeroplane. He cannot breathe underwater. He went on to list other things that he was not good at all. It was all very true and, as usual, Jeff expressed it in a very readable and funny way. You will know that if you have read any of his many books how he writes things.

He was, of course, unpacking that verse of scripture in the Bible that says “I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me”. You can find that passage in Philippians Chapter 4 verse 13.

I often hear those “well meaning” “spiritual” people say things like, “You can do it with God! We can do all things!”

It’s obvious that when Paul was talking to the Philippians Christians, he was explaining that he had had bad times and good times, and that God was able to take him through any kind of time.

So, “Yes!” Jeff is right. However, I do get a bit bored with those “I live in a box people.” You know the type. I am referring to those who are always telling others, “It can’t be done”, or worse, “This is the way it is done and there is no other method or alternative”.

This breed of “wisdom” often surfaces in some people when they hear somebody thinking out of the box they exist in.

It has seemed to me for a long time, that if one knows – that is, if one, really knows God, then they have, (or, “should have”, because often those claiming to know Him don’t seem to) a very broad view of life. Meaning; where is it all going? What’s the plan?

With those who are knowing God in a intimate way, it is a bit like looking from the top of a mountain and seeing further than those who are down in the valley. This releases them so that they are seeing the alternatives, conceiving the possibilities, perceiving the new – and even the impossible.

It also seems to me that that we can actually do a lot of things because God is with us that we would never be able to do if He wasn’t.

I know that my atheist friends struggle with that idea. They struggle with the idea of answered prayer. They struggle with the idea of God intervening on behalf of someone else. They struggle with the whole idea of miracles – boy do they struggle with that one! “It’s all just one big accidental coincidence”, I hear so often. I have had a lot to say about coincidences. Look up:

Their negative rationale goes on. And whilst others struggle with answered prayer, God’s interventions, Miracles and the like, I struggle with an answer that would satisfy my life experience of knowing God. I am talking of an answer that would properly explain my own answered prayer. I am thinking of such as moments when I find £10.00 at my feet via the natural wind after a brief one line prayer immediately answered.

I am remembering witnessing one woman’s blind eyes opening and acknowledging colour after laying hands on her and being amused at her sudden knowledge of the colour of her slippers.

Coming out of court recently, after a case where our own lawyer told us, “This is what has to happen – and it will happen just like this”, and then listening to the Judge say something totally different. That lawyer, who I don’t think shared my expectations of prayer being answered, as he walked out of the court, leaned over to me and said, “I have worked in this court for many years as a lawyer. Today I have witnessed a miracle”.

Of course, I know those who live in their mind set boxes where these sort of things do not happen, will work hard at a good explanation, and end up smiling sympathetically at my uneducated naivety.

For me, and I know many like me, we are happy that God is with us, that He does answer prayer, and that Miracles do happen. Maybe it is that boxed mindset that says, “This is how it works”, that keeps some from experiencing a more exciting way to live.

No! I can’t fly, or breathe under water, or do lots of things even though God is with me. But boy oh boy, there are things that can be done that take my breath away – metaphorically speaking of course.

So there are lots of times when people say, “You cannot do that!” “It can’t be!” “We don’t do it!”

Lots of talk on Face book and other Social Media about the Trump election and of course the Brexit out election, so I think this is a bit of a different take.

When I listen to my American friends, who voted Trump it’s all about abortion, and along with that an anti what they would call libertarian swing, when you listen to the Brexiters, it’s about freedom from the shackles of the EU, jobs, and the fact that the elite have ignored us and what we really are saying and wanting. There are so many similarities in the reasons in both countries.

I am sure that I will not be the first to say this or the last but is it a cry for freedom, freedom from the elite, the professional politicians, freedom to as they say in Brexit so that we can be in charge of our own destiny as a nation, (fat chance of that).

So what I will not be first in saying is I wonder if the libertarians have overplayed their hand. If I ask myself where I sat, I am sure many people would put me in the libertarian camp. I don’t think I have the right to tell other people how to live, act, sexual preferences, dress, even politics.

However I do object to being told that I must agree with what I don’t agree with, that I am not allowed to express views that are different to what has been deemed by the liberally lobby to be politically correct.

I do object to having to make cakes with slogans on that I don’t agree with. I do object to being told to be silent because that what I think , be it on sexuality, marriage, politics, education family or whatever is different to yours. That is where the hand has been overplayed.

Now I do want you to be able to express your opinion, even if I don’t agree with it, I want you to put forward your argument even if I think you are wrong, I don’t want you to make a cake expressing my opinion which you disagree with if you don’t want too. I even want you to be able to have platforms to speak on, I don’t want universities and the like banning speakers that they don’t agree with that is not grown up students studying that is childish. But that is where we have got to.

And so to the ballot box and now I have the chance to vote for what you don’t want and won’t like because that is my last chance to express a view that is different to yours.

Yes I know that ultimately it will hurt me, but I have been cornered. It is a bit like what happens in riots, we burn down the buildings that serve us, accommodate us, help us, not at all sensible but for a very brief moment it makes us feel better, even if long term it makes us worse off than where we started.

It all comes back to that freedom that we feel has been taken away, Socrates said in that first treaty on politics way back in 399 BC that democracy is about equality and freedom and we all want to be equal and freedom is that we can all do as we like.

We could argue about where that equality has got us to but let us look just at the freedom. We can all do as we like, the problem is that currently you can do what you like but I am not allowed to say I don’t agree with you!

It’s an old chestnut, but we do not understand freedom. We cannot do as we like there are rules, not just governmental rules, and Gods rules if you like, or you probably will call them rules of nature.

You can’t jump up in the air and keep going up; the law of gravity makes sure you come down. Saying you don’t believe in the law doesn’t not work, so if you jump of a tall building hoping to go up you might but not in the way you intended.

The same principal applies to governmental laws in certain situations, so in the UK the rule, law, of the Road is drive on the left, if you chose to ignore it and dive on the right, you will end up a mess pretty quickly.

Now tell me this, here are two inexperienced climbers, they both arrive at their chosen challenge, one says I am free to climb this mountain and I will do it by myself. The other say I am free to climb this mountain and he hires the best guide he can find, who ties him by rope to himself and they both climb together, and come down together. The free climber dies on the mountain side. Which was free to climb?

So are you free, well if that means you can do as you like I doubt it.

There is a time recorded in the Old Testament part of the Bible in Judges 18 and 21 which says ‘and every man did what was right in his own eyes’ actually it was chaotic and awful.

When we think that everything we want to do must be right, because we want to do it is very dangerous, to society but to us as an individual also; There are many things if you want to do it, I can’t really stop you, but please don’t make me agree with you, or silence me or stop me from saying something opposite to your opinion – when you do that what happens in a democracy is that there is a back lash and you get what we have in two recent elections.

Dylan says in one of his great songs, whoever you are you have got to serve somebody, and he is right. The Bible puts it a different way, but it’s really saying the same thing it say whoever commits sin is a servant of sin, (John 8:34.) I know sin is not a politically correct word, but there you go again, and I know many don’t believe that it exists, it just a different behaviour model.

Of course Jesus said something else about serving somebody He said to those who were following him, there to serve him, I no longer want to call you servant but rather friends because I want you to know what I am doing.(John 15.15)

Funny to see recently on Face Book the fact that Richard Dawkins is wondering if we need Christianity as it is not blowing people up, or saying that those that do not believe should be killed. Maybe he needs to take an even deeper look.

What really puzzles me Is why people think that a forced acceptance of something, means that I or anyone else has really accepted that premise, belief, thought. What a silly idea.

It also puzzles me that people think that if you are not allowed to speak something different to their point of view, their perspective then that is fine, they must be right, again what nonsense.

Yet this is our world, people have views that I don’t agree with, lifestyles that I think are wrong, attitudes that I think that if followed by lots of people will lead to their destruction and sometime the destruction of lots of others too, however I am not allowed to say opposite to what is the P.C. position, my view must not be heard? Now does that mean that the argument, position, life style of the others is so wrong that they cannot bear to hear anything opposite to what they have chosen right or wrong?

I joined a political party once, just to go along to the meetings and understand how they thought and how it worked. I tried to sit at the back and keep quite. One day they announced that they had made a terrible mistake, they had invited someone to speak to the meeting, and discovered he was a member of another party. They said obviously they could not listen to him. I being very naïve asked a question, this was my question, “Why are you afraid to listen to another point of view or perspective, is our own position, argument, perspective, so weak that we cannot possible listen to someone we might disagree with and disagreeing with him come to understand our position, thoughts are after all are better? He is not from our party was the answer! “yes but does that mean we cannot hear what he has to say”? The answer again, “you don’t understand, he is not a member of our party and so he will say what we don’t agree with so we can’t hear that”? I gave up!

So we live in a world where people are being killed because they disagree, don’t believe what you believe cannot possible hear even a view that is different from the party line. So this year in Brunei, Somalia, Tajikistan all banned Christmas celebrations as it might damage the thinking of the rest of the population apparently it was because of fear that people would be led astray. I wonder how weak the thinking of those people is?

I remember one of those stories, apparently a little boy was would not sit down at the meal table, he was only small and insisted on standing to eat, I think his opinion was that the food went down better that way. His Father got really upset and kept trying to make him sit down remonstrating with him with many words. The little boy refused, in the end the Father got fed up with discussion and arguments, and putting his hand on the little boys head pushed the little boy down until he was sitting. The little boy looked at his Father and recognised that he definitely was stronger than him, but then he said, “Dad, I know that you have got me sitting down at this table, but I want you to know I am actually standing up inside!